A suspenseful, intriguing, and highly original fantasy tale from a promising new author.
Bailey’s debut dark-fantasy novel offers a tale of old grudges, forbidden magic, and gruesome monsters.
As the story opens, the Unified Tribes that rule the lands are fractured, and the many different magical Realms of existence, including the Ethereal Realm and the Soul Realm, are no longer accessible to the denizens of the Terrestrial Realm. A tyrannical chief known as the Sachem has enslaved and slaughtered many innocent people in a reign of terror, with a supposed aim of keeping the peace, while his wife, Jalice, lives in cloistered indulgence in his fortress. Some whisper that the chief has been possessed by a dokojin, an otherworldly demon that feeds off pain. Jalice’s royal decoy, Delilee, and the assassin Annilasia have hatched a plot to kidnap Jalice and use magic to install Delilee in her place as part of a plan to uncover the truth behind the Sachem’s rise to power. But Annilasia gets more than she bargained for as she and Jalice are beset by hitmen, bloodthirsty abominations, and hungry dokojin, while also dealing with their bitter distrust of each other. Is Jalice truly the Sachem’s accomplice, and if so, why are there gaps in her memory? And what awaits them in the Black House, where an infernal bargain was struck many years ago? Overall, Bailey’s story, set in a distinctly non-Western fantasy world with an engaging mix of magic, spiritualism, and post-apocalyptic lore, is a tightly paced and exciting adventure. It occasionally succumbs to common pitfalls of high concept fantasy—namely, an overabundance of in-universe terminology and long-winded prose. However, the author manages to organically reveal important details of the world and its inhabitants along the way, while constantly heightening the stakes for his central characters. The book’s scenes of action and eldritch horror are especially well handled, but its greatest strength is Bailey’s commitment to developing the nuanced cast.
A suspenseful, intriguing, and highly original fantasy tale from a promising new author.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73436-161-2
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Spanning centuries and continents, this is a darkly romantic and suspenseful tale by a writer at the top of her game.
When you deal with the darkness, everything has a price.
“Never pray to the gods that answer after dark.” Adeline tried to heed this warning, but she was desperate to escape a wedding she didn’t want and a life spent trapped in a small town. So desperate that she didn’t notice the sun going down. And so she made a deal: For freedom, and time, she will surrender her soul when she no longer wants to live. But freedom came at a cost. Adeline didn’t want to belong to anyone; now she is forgotten every time she slips out of sight. She has spent 300 years living like a ghost, unable even to speak her own name. She has affairs with both men and women, but she can never have a comfortable intimacy built over time—only the giddy rush of a first meeting, over and over again. So when she meets a boy who, impossibly, remembers her, she can’t walk away. What Addie doesn’t know is why Henry is the first person in 300 years who can remember her. Or why Henry finds her as compelling as she finds him. And, of course, she doesn’t know how the devil she made a deal with will react if he learns that the rules of their 300-year-long game have changed. This spellbinding story unspools in multiple timelines as Addie moves through history, learning the rules of her curse and the whims of her captor. Meanwhile, both Addie and the reader get to know Henry and understand what sets him apart. This is the kind of book you stay up all night reading—rich and satisfying and strange and impeccably crafted.
Spanning centuries and continents, this is a darkly romantic and suspenseful tale by a writer at the top of her game.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8756-1
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Weird and haunting and excellent.
The much-anticipated second novel from the author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (2004).
The narrator of this novel answers to the name “Piranesi” even though he suspects that it's not his name. This name was chosen for him by the Other, the only living person Piranesi has encountered during his extensive explorations of the House. Readers who recognize Piranesi as the name of an Italian artist known for his etchings of Roman ruins and imaginary prisons might recognize this as a cruel joke that the Other enjoys at the expense of the novel’s protagonist. It is that, but the name is also a helpful clue for readers trying to situate themselves in the world Clarke has created. The character known as Piranesi lives within a Classical structure of endless, inescapable halls occasionally inundated by the sea. These halls are inhabited by statues that seem to be allegories—a woman carrying a beehive; a dog-fox teaching two squirrels and two satyrs; two children laughing, one of them carrying a flute—but the meaning of these images is opaque. Piranesi is happy to let the statues simply be. With her second novel, Clarke invokes tropes that have fueled a century of surrealist and fantasy fiction as well as movies, television series, and even video games. At the foundation of this story is an idea at least as old as Chaucer: Our world was once filled with magic, but the magic has drained away. Clarke imagines where all that magic goes when it leaves our world and what it would be like to be trapped in that place. Piranesi is a naif, and there’s much that readers understand before he does. But readers who accompany him as he learns to understand himself will see magic returning to our world.
Weird and haunting and excellent.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63557-563-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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